


Can't fall from the bottom

by GhostScript



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:18:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3955696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostScript/pseuds/GhostScript
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like I'm sure most of you are, I am practically out of my skin now waiting for Elementary season 4 to start. So I just wrote a little to try and guess what MIGHT have taken place in those three days mentioned in 'A Controlled Descent.' Although, if you have read my posts before, you know I usually go for the more miserable angle. In fact, I almost just wrote a whole thing about Sherlock and Oscar from his first days in New York and the ideas I have for that would probably get me some serious hate mail. I dunno, I really just want to talk about everyone's theories for the new season!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't fall from the bottom

In that very instant he let go; he un-hinged. It had been a long time coming. His job was done, Alfredo was safe, and he could let it out.  
The first punch was cathartic.  
With every kick that landed he felt a piece of himself was leaving with it, over and over again, against Oscar’s neck, and shoulders, and chest.  
It was as if he was leaving himself there. All of his emotion was in those strikes. After everything that happened, all of his duty to pretend to be in control was leaving him though his rage. He’d been forced to relive each of his worst memories like his own fucked up version of A Christmas Carol. 

Alfredo was alive, Olivia was not, but through no fault of his own. His work on this case was done. He didn’t need to be on top of it anymore, he had no driving force keeping him on the surface, and quite frankly, there was too much to swim through.  
He wanted to drown.  
It was stupid to think Oscar had undone him. Oscar was only a piece of it. He didn’t have to go with Oscar to the shooting gallery. He had scowled there, like he was disgusted, and he was trying to fool himself just as much as Oscar. When Oscar started tapping out that packet of heroin that night he’d felt his heart skip.  
Truth was he had wanted to use for a while. Every day had grown harder. 

The pink phone in his hand might as well have been glass, he was staring through it- through Joan’s texts, through the struggle that came with trying to be ‘alright,’ straight through to what he really wanted, his other option; which had been quite literally dropped at his feet. Sherlock tossed the cell phone to the ground, replacing it with the metal tin. Oscar’s stash. There didn’t seem to be a better time than now to get it over with.  
He likened his beating of Oscar to a last thrash before surrendering to the circling sharks.  
He clutched the tin tightly as he walked deliberately into the dark tunnel.  
A slight breeze cycled through it’s opening, wafting the stale air around. The stench of the corpse was only bad in spots, and only if you stood still.  
The further and further he ventured, the warmer everything was, in a sickly way, and his brain felt swollen and throbbed.  
When he was a good distance away, he tossed his coat on a concrete slab and sat down. He wagered Oscar wouldn’t be unconscious forever, and no doubt Watson would have pinged the location of his “borrowed” cell phone.  
The rock was moist, but he didn’t care. He nimbly rolled up his sleeve, and dug in to the contents of the tin.  
He was deep enough in that they wouldn’t find him. Would they even think to look amongst the rats and graffiti and bright orange syringe caps stamped into the dirt? Watson might give him the benefit of the doubt that he went to a meeting or followed another lead for something else.  
Most of the riggs in the box had been used, but there were a couple clean ones at the bottom.  
Sherlock cooked up his shot like the last three years had never happened, like he’d never gone to Hemdale.  
Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d dreamed all of that too and he’d really just been living with Oscar this whole time, who was also possibly just the haunting personification of his own self loathing, in a blur between fixes.  
When he slammed the mixture into his bloodstream he felt home again. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he wondered to himself why had he waited so long to admit this.  
Oscar was right, they were cut from the same cloth.  
He is an will forever be a junkie. He knew he was going to use. He knew in his bones that he wasn’t done, no matter how many times he told everyone the opposite.  
He also knew, in a way, that even Oscar was his fault. 

He awoke to find himself curled up on his coat, his mouth open. He’d drooled a little, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been gone, the tunnel itself was long and dark, but when he reached the other end it was still dark. The night sky seemed unusually cold shouldered, and he swore it seemed as if all the bulbs in all the lampposts were burned out.  
He hailed a cab.  
When he got to the brownstone he was still high enough to drop his keys in his attempt to go inside.  
Watson was already on the warparth, barraging him simultaneously with questions and answers. She mentioned something about Oscar’s broken clavacle, and Olivia, and Alfredo and where had he been/why hadn’t he called, and maybe an offer of tea? He couldn’t put all the pieces together so it just sounded like noise.

“Give me a minute, Watson.”  
She dropped her hands to her side that had just been assertively on her hips and nodded, a little deflated perhaps. He walked right passed her up the stairs and into his room, where he promised himself another shot. This stash was high grade, after all, he thought. Would be a shame not to have one more taste. He could deal with the repercussions tomorrow. Maybe no one would even know he slipped up, he could find a new sponsor and it would be nothing more than a blip. 

Naturally his haste made him sloppy, his thirst made him misjudge, and what he didn’t count on was his over zealousness in round two. He’d prepared a shot to get proper high this time. This was the last one, probably, so he should make it count.  
When he spiked his vein this time he savored it. He held the syringe in his arm, watched the bead of blood.  
When he thumbed the plunger in, he knew he’d made a mistake. It hit him so quick. He couldn’t feel his heart beat. He couldn’t open his eyes. He was being smothered by blackness and then nothing.  
Is that what he wanted after all?  
Swirling underneath the oceans again. Heat spread through him. The blood in his ears was like sound of gentle waves. The river Styx. 

He felt something shift... Had he fallen off his bed? He thought he felt something brush his cheek, along with a resonating hum. 

Watson had been slapping him hard across the face.  
“Wakeup you idiot!” She shouted, over and over. So determined. That surgeon’s glare she sometimes wore. 

Sherlock couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t even reach them. He’d fallen inside himself. He was imploding.  
He felt her delicate fingers pushing him, and the burn of a flashlight. 

When the Narcan she administered hit him it was as if she’d stabbed her hand right through into his chest cavity and punched his heart. He gasped for all the air he’d forgotten to be breathing.  
He thought he was telling her he was fine, and just sleeping, but of course he wasn’t he was just muttering nonsense. 

Two days later he was released from the hospital. He stared out the window the whole drive home. It was raining and miserable out.  
Mrs Hudson guided him along gently through the brownstone as if he was blind and dumb until they reached the bathroom where she pulled a fresh towel out of the linen cupboard and told him to shower. He complied in silence.  
The water stung. His needle marks were bruised.  
After he dried off he changed into his favored sweats from his rehab stint, and got into bed. His room had been thoroughly tossed.  
He slept though to the next evening. 

All the lights were off, Mrs Hudson was asleep under a book on the couch.  
Sherlock wasn’t sure what he was feeling, other than sick.  
He’d been given two days supply of methadone from his doctor, and some numbers to call and pamphlets to read, which Mrs Hudson stuffed into her purse to be polite.  
He took the second dose and went up to the roof to be alone. His bees weren’t even there; he’d taken the hives to one of his safe houses with more room for tests last week.  
Even their buzz wouldn’t have soothed him. He just wanted to be alone, and nothing made him feel more alone than looking across the horizon at all those other people. 

He heard the door open but didn’t look back. He knew by the clacking that it was Joan in a pair of her ridiculous heels, and he couldn’t bear to look at her.


End file.
